• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Crime / Courts / Congressman says proposal would help police natural gas industry

Congressman says proposal would help police natural gas industry

December 8, 2005 By admin

Congressman Steve King is advancing a proposal that would clear the path for federal investigations of alleged price-fixing in the natural gas industry and would significantly increase fines for businesses found guilty of price-gouging. The penalties for businesses guilty of manipulating the natural gas market would go from one-hundred-thousand dollars to one-million dollars.

King, a Republican from Kiron in western Iowa, says the House Ag Committee last (Wednesday) night endorsed an amendment that would do just that. “The amendment adds more sunshine and oversight (and) powers to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission,” King says. He says the proposal erases some auditing requirements that had prevented the commission from quickly assessing cases of alleged price fixing.

King says the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will now be able to target their investigations on spikes in the market rather than conduct a wide-ranging audit of general natural gas trading over a broad period of time. King says at the turn of the century, eight companies were fined for manipulating the natural gas market.

King says one-hundred-40 million dollars in fines were levied against the eight companies — with that cap of one-hundred-thousand dollars per incident. “Multiply that times 10 — that’ll be the penalty hanging over their heads this time if they manipulate the market,” King says.

The proposal was backed by both Republicans and Democrats on the House Ag Committee and King says he’s confident it will eventually become law.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Crime / Courts, Politics / Govt Tagged With: Steve King, Utilities

Featured Stories

Reynolds signs her ‘school choice’ bill into law

Governor Reynolds touts 2024 Iowa Caucuses in Inaugural Address

University of Iowa grad presiding over U.S. House Speaker vote

Iowan who was oldest person in the U.S. dies

Iowa Lottery to start making some payments via debit cards

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Iowa State names new receivers coach

No. 2 Iowa visits No. 1 Penn State in wrestling dual Friday night

Iowa’s Clark brings increased exposure to women’s basketball

No. 18 Iowa State women visit TCU

Northern Iowa men host Valparaiso

More Sports

Archives

Copyright © 2023 ยท Learfield News & Ag, LLC